“What we nurture within us eventually becomes what we offer the world.”

A garden eventually reveals what has been tended. So do we.

What we nurture within ourselves rarely remains contained inside us. Patience finds its way into a difficult conversation. Gratitude changes how we receive an ordinary day. Compassion influences how we respond to another person's struggle. Curiosity keeps us open to perspectives beyond our own.

But the same is true of what we allow to grow unattended.

Resentment can harden into bitterness. Fear can become suspicion. Anger carried too long can find its way into your everyday stress; into interactions with others.

Our interior lives have consequences.

This does not mean we must fill ourselves with pleasant thoughts or deny the difficult emotions that comes with being human. Grief requires its time and space. Anger might reveal something that needs our attention. Fear sometimes alerts us. Even disappointment shares a lesson.

The question is not whether these emotions show up inside us.

The question is what we choose to nurture once they arrive.

Over time, what receives our attention takes root. And what takes root within us eventually bears fruit in and around us: our homes, our friendships, our workplaces, and sometimes in people we may never know we affected.

Perhaps this is one of the quiet responsibilities of being human: to tend our inner lives not only for ourselves, but for those who will someday be a recipient of our words and actions.

For in ways both large and small, we are always sharing with the world something that we have cultivated within.